ABSTRACT

If materialism is a movement, then materiality must be whatever it is that materialism advocates. Or perhaps matter rather than materiality is championed by materialism, and the complicated and more nuanced word "materiality" tries to deconstruct the seeming simplicity of matter. Materialism is not merely an oppositional gesture; it is always hyper-foundational. Materialism is always a turning back, always part of a materialist turn, and therefore always "new" materialism. If one accepts that there has been a binary association between women and their supposedly determining embodiment, biology, and sexuality, and one accepts that one must resist "essentialism" in all its forms, then a turn to matter requires significant theoretical work. Theorists of sexual difference, such as Moira Gatens, Elizabeth Grosz, and Rosi Braidotti insisted that one could not reduce sexual difference to biology or essence. Materiality is the complex milieu of bodies and habits that surround and generate events of reading.